Brooklyn painter is 'picture' perfect
By DAVID K. LI
Don't tell Alyssa Monks these paintings look like photographs.
For now, the Brooklyn artist will take the picture-perfect compliment -- but she wants to make it clear that she's not out to be a human Polaroid camera.
"It's not up to me what I get labeled," said Monks, who rejects the tag "photorealism" for her stunning work. "I think the term 'photorealism' is about using a photograph as their subject. I'm using the photo as a loose reference."
The 31-year-old New Jersey native can't deny that she's getting plenty of ink for her paintings -- which carry remarkable photolike qualities -- whether it's on newsprint or computer screens. London's Daily Mail ran a huge spread of her work last week.
FOOLED YA': This painting, titled "Smirk," by Alyssa Monks, is actually oil on linen -- not a photo.
"There's no desire to try to make it so smooth and look brushless" Monks told The Post yesterday. "If in fact it looks that real, it's a testament to the time and detail. It's not intended to look photorealistic."
The artist is particularly fond of her paintings that depict water drops and steam in a shower stall.
"It's about using paint and playing with colors," said Monks, who teaches at the New York Academy of Art and Montclair State.
New Yorkers can get a look in March at Monks' show at the DFN Gallery on the Upper East Side.
"There's a lot of confusion about my work," Monks said. "People see little 3-by-5 images on a computer screen, and it looks like a photograph. The reality is the paintings are not small. Some are eight feet wide, and there's a lot of paint, a lot of surface."
david.li@nypost.com